Lawrence Walsh probably is an angry and vindictive man, as his critics charge. But I don't blame him. The Iran-contra independent prosecutor has spent six years trying to learn the truth about a scandal that dwarfs Watergate in seriousness and international implications. Yet there has been no Woodward-and-Bernstein glory for Walsh.

Instead, officials at the highest levels of our democracy (including President George Bush) have withheld relevant information from him, the courts have dismissed his most significant convictions because of technicalities, and many Republicans have consistently criticized him for daring to waste $35 million in taxpayer money on his brazen pursuit of justice.

My guess is Walsh knows more about the Iran-contra scandal than any other person on this planet, yet he has had to watch Oliver North, John Poindexter and numerous other criminals like them go free.

Bush's Christmas Eve pardons of former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger '38 and five other Iran-contra figures may have been the last straw. Now, Walsh is going after Bush himself.

Since last summer, more and more evidence has surfaced indicating that Bush was not, as he claimed, "out of the loop" when the decisions were made to sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages, and then to divert profits from those sales to aid the Nicaraguan rebel contras.

Bush has trivialized this scandal as the "criminalization of policy differences," suggesting that the problem merely stemmed from a disagreement between then-President Ronald Reagan and the Democratic Congress about whether to support the contras in their guerilla war against the Sandinista government.

But the Boland Amendment expressly prohibited government aid to the contras--by covertly funding the Nicaraguan "freedom fighters," Reagan's underlings (if not Reagan himself) acted illegally. This is more than a disagreement about policy; it is a violation of U.S. law.

The worst crime, though, was not the scandal itself, but--just as with Watergate--the cover-up that followed. Weinberger had notes indicating that Bush knew much more than he admitted about the arms-for-hostages deal, but the former Defense Secretary withheld these notes from Congress and later from Walsh. His testimony before Congress was therefore perjury, not merely a "policy difference." Weinberger's trial was scheduled to begin last Tuesday, but thanks to Bush that day passed uneventfully.

The other five people whom Bush pardoned included three who have already pleaded guilty to charges of withholding information from Congress: former national security advisor Robert McFarlane, former assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams, and former head of the CIA's Central American Task Force Alan Fiers Jr. They have admitted their crimes, but Bush insists they were innocent victims of a dispute over policy.

Clair George, another CIA official whom Bush pardoned, was recently convicted on two counts of lying to Congress--that's lying, not disagreeing, and Bush claims it was just a "policy difference."

Bush's explanation of why he played Santa Claus with the law in the twilight of his presidency is a vivid demonstration of his mistaken confidence that the American people will believe anything he tells them. (Remember "no new taxes"?) To Bush, the gentleman preppie from Andover and Yale, honesty is not nearly as important as rhetoric. He could say with a straight face, "I am doing what I believe honor, decency and fairness require."

I don't believe honor, decency or fairness have anything to do with it. There is no honor in obstructing justice by withholding information from and lying to independent investigators, nor is there honor in condoning this obstruction by granting clemency to people who perpetrate it.

There is nothing remotely decent about ridiculing the constitutional separation of powers by asserting that when Congress exercises its power to appropriate funds the executive branch can circumvent congressional will and chalk it all up to "policy differences."

And it is anything but fairness when the president indicates that his friends are not accountable under the law. Bush's pardons were perhaps his final presidential act of elitism. After using Willie Horton to depict Michael Dukakis as soft on crime four years ago, Bush has released his buddies on a permanent furlough.

But if Bush thought this act of arrogance would silence Walsh, he is finding that he was wrong. I have no idea where Walsh gets the energy to persevere in his efforts when he has heard a constant stream of lies from the government that hired him to learn the truth.